Science Bloggers
sastyk | April 1, 2010It is funny, when you interact with people on the internet, you develop a mental image of them - or at least I do. And sometimes people look pretty much like you expect, but sometimes not. I've found this situation to be particularly acute at science blogs, where I rapidly developed strong mental images of my colleagues, only to find that most of them are totally different in real life (thanks Google for clueing me in) than the sense you get from their blogs (even their photos can be misleading). I'm not sure what the correct word for someone whose internet presence creates a mistaken…
sporte | October 6, 2008Okay, watching some of the other movies makes me realize that I've been very negligent in not uploading ours.
Without further ado, here it is.
Can you guess the age of the person who made the movie? I'll give you a hint. It wasn't me.
sporte | September 28, 2008Ozzie's will never be the same.
The sun shone so brightly yesterday afternoon that it left us with no choice. We had to go outdoors. Luckily, Ozzie's has a wonderful upper deck in full view of the daylight and well-equipped with chairs.
Photo footage below.
The scene of the crime.
Where do we hang the banner?
Bloggers and readers enjoy the Seattle sun.
Dave confesses some uncertainty about the fate of Schrodinger's cat.
That's all for now!
But our readers say they want to do this more often!
UPDATE: GrrlScientist has more pictures here.
mementomori | January 25, 2008Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do.
-Henry VIII, Act III, Scene ii
It is time for The Cheerful Oncologist to sign out. I have decided to take a holiday from writing and therefore am cutting the cord from ScienceBlogs. I send thanks to those readers who put up with my malarkey…
mementomori | January 9, 2008That last post was my 300th since I joined the ScienceBlogs community in August of 2006. I usually don't comment about my personal life but I must confess to a certain feeling of satisfaction on reaching the 300 mark, as I never thought I'd last this long. Since creating my alter ego over three years ago I have enjoyed setting him loose on the unsuspecting blogosphere. Coincidentally, over this same time period my practice has become much busier, not to mention my family plus my snooty dog who requires more attention than Marc Antony gave the Queen of the Nile. This makes it hard to find…
mementomori | December 8, 2006
While wandering around ScienceBlogs yesterday I read that my fellow med-blogger Orac has been nominated as a finalist in the 2006 Weblog Awards under the catagory "Best Medical/Health Issues Blog." Congratulations to him and to the other ScienceBloggers finalists: Pharyngula, Deltoid, Good Math Bad Math and Mixing Memory.
Unaccustomed as I am to self-promotion I wasn't sure if I should bleat the news that I was nominated too, but since we live in interesting times I asked myself "What would the typical Hollywood celebrity do?" Thus you see my decision to join the glittering crowd of…
mementomori | September 7, 2006Since there is a nerd contest going on at ScienceBlogs I might as well reveal my score:
What does this mean? Your nerdiness is: Somewhat nerdy. I mean face it, you are nerdier than about half the test takers.
Hey, I just might be the least nerdy of all the ScienceBloggers! Wow! Kinda makes a doc feel good about himself, don't it? I might even update my press photo to reflect my new found status as a normal guy...
mementomori | August 30, 2006
I read this article in the NRO, and the author actually made some interesting arguments. 'Basically,' he said, 'I am questioning the premise that [global warming] is a problem rather than an opportunity.' Does he have a point?...
While I am no expert in giving out answers to global warming I do know how to ask questions and would therefore like offer readers the chance to digest some views on the subject. Everyone knows that the debate about global warming can be broken down into several headings. In order to spark debate let me pose them as questions, then refer the reader to some…
mementomori | August 20, 2006I recently gave an interview to Jo Cavallo, a journalist who is writing a story for a national medical magazine about the dilemma of paying for new targeted therapies against cancer. She asked that I post the following request for interview:
Interview Request
I'm writing a magazine story about the high cost of targeted cancer drugs and I'm looking for cancer patients to interview who have either refused treatment because they can't afford their insurance co-payment
or don't have health insurance at all and can't get the drugs. If you're interested in being interviewed, please e-mail me at…
mementomori | August 7, 2006What movie do you think does something admirable (though not necessarily accurate) regarding science? Bonus points for answering whether the chosen movie is any good generally....
Ahem...being on holiday for the past two weeks I just now saw this AskaSciBlogger question and therefore have earned the rather embarrassing title of "Last to Respond." This does give me the advantage of reading my fellow ScienceBloggers' repsonses, which consist mainly of films that I have never seen (and never will, for that matter). Non omnia possumus omnes.
When it comes to revealing a succession of mind-…
mementomori | July 19, 2006If you could have practiced science in any time and any place throughout history, which would it be, and why?
Without hesitation I would choose to be sitting on the front steps of a certain hospital in Baltimore that had just opened for business in 1889, waiting for a certain transplanted Canadian to come ambling up toward the front doors. As he approached I would rise and doff my hat to him, saying "Excuse me, Sir? I am a graduate of the University of Iowa medical school and have traveled here to offer myself up for study and hard work, so that I may become the type of physician that you…
mementomori | July 12, 2006Is every species of living thing on the planet equally deserving of protection?
By protection dost thou mean protection from the human species, or from other species, or from certain other somewhat psychologically unstable members of the same species?
Whosoever asketh this question must be hinting around that Homo sapiens is a highly embarrassing example of a creature that ravages less intelligent species without any regard to the value that other unique living organisms bring to Mother Earth.
Giveth me a break. Long after the human race has become extinct there will still be acrobatic…
mementomori | July 6, 2006On July 5, 1996, Dolly the sheep became the first successfully cloned mammal. Ten years on, has cloning developed the way you expected it to?
For what it's worth, my answer is yes; cloning has progressed exactly the way I expected it to - agonizingly slow, marred with controversy and eliciting knee-jerk reactions of horror from the general populace as if maggot-infested revenants were just beyond the front gate, waiting for the all-clear sign to attack.
I suppose it didn't help that Ira Levin flooded our popular culture with the worst possible example of human cloning years before Dolly the…
mementomori | June 28, 2006What are some unsung successes that have occurred as a result of using science to guide policy?
Are you kidding me? Can you imagine what life would be like in America if our government had ignored the cries of scientists begging us to use new discoveries to "guide policy"? How about this for an example:
Warum nicht sind wir aller sprechende Deutsche?
or alternatively,
Почему не все мы говорение по-русски?
Or perhaps a panhandler accosted you today and you barked at him:
Ittai nani ga hoshitenda, Chikushome!
For more enlightenment I suggest perusing this little dandy of a story.
Domo…
mementomori | June 21, 2006What makes a good science teacher?...
"Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school." -Albert Einstein
This is a fascinating and germane question for physicians, who must suffer through the following courses (all taught by science teachers, of course) in order to earn their degree:
1 year each of Biology, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry and Physics
Comparative Anatomy
Quantitative Analysis
Genetics
Physiology (Bless me Lord, for I have sinned - I didn't take this in college)
[I'm sure there are other courses out there for the obsessive-compulsive pre-med…
mementomori | June 16, 2006Flash! What new ScienceBlogs blogger just might have figured out how to show comments from his gentle readers?
I do apologize for the delay in figuring this incredibly complex aspect of the enigmatic Movable Type program.
Please feel free to bombs away in the Comments section, and I'll try to maintain a little higher degree of vigilance than Captain Edward John Smith did on the night of April 14, 1912.
mementomori | June 15, 2006How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?...
In my case I have learned the art of working at twice the speed of the average doctor, not unlike The Flash, who upon overhearing his wife express a velleity for a bowl of peanut-butter-and-chocolate ice cream magically produced it from within the folds of his cape before she even had time to change her mind to Rocky Road.
Also, I love to write, that helps. Even when the finished product is riddled with comma splices…
mementomori | June 12, 2006"Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?"
I don't have to even think twice about this one - if I wasn't spending my time stalking the beast Cancer I would have my head in the stars, pursuing the answers to questions no one has ever been able to answer. For me, Cosmology (as compared to Cosmetology) is the most exciting field outside of medicine that exists, if it does truly exist. The universe, that is. Not that I think it doesn't exist - I'm just a masochist for ontological…